The Friday Link for 11/29/24

Howdy everyone! I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving! We did at Chateau McNeil, and not only did I gorge on the Turkey Day fixings, but I just finished a vat of turkey soup big enough to feed a battleship.

This week, I'm going to feature a few videos from the YouTube account Dark Brandon. These videos are powerful. The page collects people's rants about Trump and what is going on in society and animates them. The animation draws people in, but it's what these people are saying that is stunning.

It's clear many of the people who voted for Trump only did so because they felt it would upset the Democrats, and now that they "won," they're not only terrified of what they just unleashed on themselves, but they also are desperately trying to reframe their votes as something other than the petty, misguided, brainwashed stupidity it was. 

Let's start off with one of @ParkrosePermaculture talking about MAGA voters begging everyone else to not abandon them and stay their friends.  As she says, you voted to take away people's rights and hurt all of us.  Hard pass! 

Next up is a talk with @BrittanyWisonAuthor sharing what is now a common experience; MAGA people who are coming to the realization that they were so blinded by 'owning the libs' they didn't realize they voted to get rid of something they really need! In this case, education spending through the Department of Education for a MAGA voter in Oklahoma.

Finally is a video featuring @Tressa talking about something I've heard AT LEAST 5 other people share with me.  A lot of MAGA voters did not realize Obamacare and The Affordable Care Act are the same thing, and now they are surprised to find out they are about to lose their healthcare. 

I'm going to say this without any regret.  I hope this vote hurts MAGA.  They voted to do this to everyone else but themselves, wanting to punish the Democratic villains they've been told to hate.  I'm only hoping they suffer as much as the people they wanted to suffer, maybe even a little bit worse. 

Maybe then they'll realize which political party was fighting for them, and which political party was fighting against them. 

Finally tonight is Dune.  With the new spin-off series on HBO, it's worth taking some time to revisit the expansive timeline of the Dune universe, from the time of us now to 10s of thousands of years into the future.  They really created something amazing with this expanded lore. 

Have a great weekend, everyone.  Remember everything you are thankful for, as a lot of it will be gone soon.

Please get updated vaccinations while you can! 

The Friday Link for 11/22/24

Hi all! Travel safe if you are heading out in the next week and have a nice Thanksgiving.

Right now, we are all watching as Trump appoints unqualified cabinet nominee after unqualified cabinet nominee. It's downright embarrassing; some of the people he is putting forward. An anti-vax kook to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a Russian agent to run out Intelligence agencies, and TV host after TV host with no government experience to run various government programs.

A friend who I suspect of being a Trump voter asked me "What's the big deal?  It's not like they could screw up too much."

You have no idea.

I'm not sure if I shared this video before, but I'm bringing it back regardless.  Meet Trofim Lysenko, a grossly unqualified zealot who believed in fantasy over reality. Stalin put him into power over genetics and agriculture.  Everything he theorized was wrong, but he was convinced he was right, even though decades of evidence showed he wasn't.

The end result:  Up to 70 Million dead. Seriously 70 MILLION PEOPLE DIED using this fool's theories.

Yes, the people Trump is putting into power can cause a great deal of damage, although I pray it's not as bad as what happened in the former Soviet Union and China. The suffering we're all about to go through will teach us why MAGA voters are fools, and everyone else needs to vote EVERY election. 

 

Well, THAT was depressing.

To cheer you up let me post what could be the greatest Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode for Minnesotans.  Enjoy the Finland masterpiece The Day The Earth Froze, with so many Minnesota references it will put you in flannel! 

Keep a stiff upper lip, stay together, and we'll get through all of this together! 

And please stay up to date on your vaccinations. 

The Friday Link for 11/15/24

This week, I'm going to start off with a nice distraction.  Marvel Movies might be coming back to form!

In a previous Friday Link, I posted how excited I was about The Thunderbolts movie, but we can't overlook the next major Marvel Movie coming out, Captain America: Brave New World.

The Captain America franchise works best when they treat it like a spy film.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not only one of the best Marvel films, but it's also a tight spy adventure (which also has the best fight scenes in all of Marvel movies [Cap v. Bucky]).

Since they retired Chris Evan's Cap, Anthony Mackie has taken over the role.  This happened in the comic book, and I'm glad they are also following that line with Brave New World. 

Plus they further explore the great Isaiah Bradley storyline from the comics and TV series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it looks like they are trying to clean up a major open-ended problem with The Eternals, and Red Hulk makes his first appearance.  I'm looking forward to this on Valentine's Day. 

Back to the Thunderbolts.  At D23, which is kind of a Brazilian Comic Con, they released an extended scene and new footage. Even more geeked now! 

Finally tonight is what is considered a top ten all-time NFL playoff upset, 1987's Minnesota Vikings upsetting the San Francisco 49ers in a divisional playoff game.  

Not sure why this showed up in my YouTube Algorithm but this was a pretty big upset.  They stymied Joe Montana, and a young off-the-bench Steve Young, and dramatically limited Jerry Rice. Anthony Carter had a career game and the Vikings made history.

I think one of the reasons we don't talk about this game more is the reality of the NFL at that time.  It was not a good product.  There were two good NFC teams, and the eventual winner usually destroyed the AFC.  The modern version of the game is a lot more entertaining, but watching these highlights reminds me of how HUGE that win was.  This city was abuzz after that win.

With it being the NFL, you have to watch that one on YouTube!

Have a good weekend everyone! 

Make sure to stay up to date on your vaccines, before you know who creates chaos! 

The Pile of Ideas

There's been a lot of discussion this last week about what's wrong with the Democrats, why did they lose 10 million voters in 2024 from their totals in 2020?

There's a lot of finger-pointing going on. "They've alienated the working class voter!" "They should have been more pro-Palestinian!" "They needed to turn on Biden!"

All these bellowings are an attempt by bitter fools to make themselves look smart; "If they'd only done WHAT I SAID THEY SHOULD DO...!"  The truth about what happened is a misunderstanding of what has been the failing of the Democratic Party for 16 years.  The Democrats are not really a 'party' anymore, more of a wide-ranging, non-cohesive pile of ideas. 

The first thing I want to approach is the reality of the 2024 election.  Did any group of people leave the Democrats and end up supporting Trump?  Maybe a few but not really.  The same 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020, voted for Trump in 2024. His numbers are pretty consistent.  Maybe there were a few Democrats who defected, and surely a few Republicans defected to the Democrats, but nothing substantial would allow someone to point to that group and say "They're the reason the Democrats lost."  

The reality is Democrats just didn't show up with everything on the line, like in 2016, in 2010, in 2004, in 2000, and so on and so on.  So why did 10 million fewer Democrats vote in 2024 than in 2020?

There were two things that happened Sunday that answered this question for me.  The first was a series of stories from conservative America where reality is settling in.  There are a lot of Republicans who are now, AFTER the election, publically asking, "I love Trump and all, but he's not really getting rid of that government program, IS HE?  My family needs that program?" There are many Republicans who are starting to freak out as they come to grips with the consequences of their actions. Their blind obedience to Republicans never made them once question if they should vote for a person who has vowed to hurt them with the repealing of a government program their family needs. 

The other thing that happened was an attempt to shame Democrats from the social media account Democratic Wins, which posted a video from Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, one of the handful of Democrats who won in a red district.  Their argument is her common sense approach to a specific issue related to the voters.  The issue? Daycares can't peel and serve fresh fruit to kids because the act of peeling falls under the category of food prep and requires a kitchen setup, something most daycares do not have.  I agree with the idea that a bag of chips and cookies is a far worse snack option than a banana, but this is not the issue that the Democrats should champion nationwide, nor does their argument look at her election specifically, where the Republican candidate was pretty bad.  Her issue worked for her, but a lot of Democrats had common sense issues like that, and they didn't win. 

Republicans vote for their party über alles.  They could care less about Trump's behavior or the radical and painful policy decisions they are endorsing.  For 30+ years, the Right has effectively brainwashed their followers to never care about the candidate or the issues, only the 'R.' This is why I've said most Republicans would vote for a turnip if there was an 'R' next to it on the ballot. For the record, I am NOT endorsing this, as the end result of such loyalty can look more akin to a cult than a political party (sound familiar?).  But this is why the Hilter-loving, Epstein BFF won; no one cared until AFTER the election.

The Democrats have a FAR bigger problem.  They are no longer a functioning party, but rather a pile of ideas. Tell me three things every Democrat in the Party agrees on.  Tell me what the Democratic Party's established policy on Gaza was?  The wild attempt to blame this loss on....something is a great example of how the much larger problem is being ignored.

Democrats and Republicans like the two-party system.  Between the two parties, they have pretty much all of the political power in the country. But there has been a problem.  The Republicans have continued to shrink ideals from a wide-ranging party, which included moderates and fiscal conservatives, to only a group that signs off on the MAGA power threshold.  As they have basically told the Republican party members it's our way or the highway, many moderate and fiscally conservative Republicans have left.

Enter the Democrats who started to adopt the 'wide umbrella' position.  Their mentality is if they were not Republican, then the Democrats would make room in their party for them.  The Democrats rolled out the welcome mat to the disenfranchised Republicans and told them as long as they didn't bad mouth the party, they didn't really need to endorse and support the party platform.  They could bring their ideas into the Democratic fold and present them as policy.  

At the same time, Democrats, concerned about losing their base to further left-leaning parties, started to welcome those voters and politicians under the same wide umbrella.  The idea was that we were one big happy family, but what really happened was the unraveling of the Democratic platform.

It's politically impossible to have a single political party that appeals to both a 'far further left than most Democrats are comfortable with' Bernie Sanders and an outright Republican in Joe Manchin.  Your umbrella is TOO WIDE, and because so, you have forsaken a cohesive Democratic Party platform, replacing it with 3000 people screaming ideas that may or may not appeal to even 50% of the Democratic Party. With no consistent message about what exactly the Democrats stand for, voters tune them out when their million-ideas platform fails to connect.

Why did so many people turn out in 2020?  Because that year, the pile ideas at least had some consistency.  Trump was screwing up the COVID response horrifically.  The fear of illness and death allowed the Democrats to capture the majority of voters, even ones who generally did not turn up at election time. The pandemic presented a clear choice, and 2020 became hard for the Democrats to screw up. 

Let's look further at 2024.  I'm for the fair treatment of the Palestinians, but the lack of a cohesive Democratic plan muddied the message overall.  I have no doubt the Democrats had an official stance, but their "everyone's ideas are valid" approach welcomed extremists on the left who insisted Isreal withdraw from Gaza, apologizing to every Palestinian as they left, Israeli reparations to all Palestinians, immediate Palestinian statehood and the USA ending diplomatic relations with Israel. I'm pro-Palestine, but I am nowhere near close to that policy.  From the other side OF THE SAME PARTY, the approach was Israel could do no wrong and should never be questioned. In the end, a few far-left "Democrats" might not have voted out of idealism, but the FAR BIGGER problem was the Democratic Party policy on this issue looked confused, disjointed, and contradictory.  You are not giving people a reason to vote for you when you're a hot mess. 

This is another reason the pile of ideas approach fails.  Because there is no consistent standard, extremes from both sides can enter into the party and push an agenda that is way out of line with mainstream Democratic policy.  It's hard to start a third party.  It takes a lot of work and decades to succeed, but fringe issues don't need to do that work as long as the Democrats put out the welcome mat.  

The Republican-lite side of the party can bite Democrats in another way. In Minnesota, we did better than most of the country, but the party lost footing in the Minnesota State House. Why?  I think a lot of it had to do with the main race the Minnesota Democrats (the DFL) were focused on, the MN02 Congressional seat, where Angie Craig easily won.  The state party poured a ton of money into her race, as her message basically boiled down to [paraphrasing], "I proudly disagree with Biden and am proud to work against the Democratic Party."  What political party thought this approach in a bellwether race wouldn't hurt other Democrats' campaigns?  The pile of the idea says that as long as someone has a "D" next to their name, they can do anything, regardless of ripple effects.  An anti-Democrat Democratic campaign caused more damage for lower ballot statewide races.  You sacrificed 100 races for one.  That's stupid.

So how do we fix this?  The solution is actually simple, but intimidating enough that most Democratic leaders will refuse.

1. If you want to be a Democrat, you have to be a proud Democrat.  No more campaigning against your own party.  
2.  The Democrat Pary needs to (re) establish a list of 10 to 15 MUST COMMIT TO policy standards, stuff like women's rights, healthcare for all, raising the minimum wage, and TAXING BILLIONAIRES AT A HIGHER RATE THAN THE MIDDLE CLASS(!!!). This list should be easy to compile, and by demanding anyone who wants to run as a Democrat commit to those issues, you'll likely trim the extremes away.
3.  Appreciate some ideas, but if the ideas are extreme or contradict the core principles of the Party, then the Party should be the loudest and most vocal corrections/condemnations. The days of a free-for-all are over.  Your own party should not undermine your own message.
4.  Do a much better job at presenting the party platform to the media.  The Democrats are HORRIFIC at messaging. 

The pile of ideas is the problem, but my guess is the Democratic party will not solve it.  They are a political party whose approach is "Why say something in three words that we can instead say with a 900-page thesis, with a full bibliography, that's been run through 29 different focus groups?"  

We shouldn't have to get to the point of a global pandemic for your political party platform and messaging to make sense for the average voter.

The Friday Link for 11/8/24

Hi everyone.

Blah...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

It's not been the best week. 

I am so disappointed Trump won again.  This country is about to go through some things. There are a lot of things I talked about on the radio show this week, so feel free to go listen to any of the shows (https://soundcloud.com/user-587903571).

Here is a clip about one of the things I feel the Democrats are doing wrong.  Thanks to Cliff Schecter for putting it up on his channel Cliff's Edge. 

I have four more videos for you this week, starting with a very funny political ad parody with SNL and John Mulaney.

Also tonight my YouTube algorithm pulled up two deleted scenes from Marvel movies I had not seen.  These are actually REALLY good, and I would make an argument they were better than the scenes they were replaced with.  One is from Avenger's Endgame and one is from Thor: Ragnarok.

And finally tonight, I love Men At Work, the Australian band from the early 80's, which had a slew of hits.  Someone sent me an HD version of Down Under, and it looked great. I remember watching this at friend's houses when MTV was new.  This is 80's art! 

Take some time for yourself this weekend. Prepare yourself for what is coming and the fight ahead! 

Be safe.

This is the End of Twitter

Okay, I know I have said this before, but this is it.  This is my last direct post on Twitter.

I've been talking about officially leaving Twitter since Elon took over because it was clear he was here with an agenda. We all now see what that agenda is; to promote Trump through lies, misinformation, and aggressive posters while at the same time limiting anything the site deems too damaging to Trump.  It's the second part of that which is the most egregious offense. As Musk insisted he was all about freedom of speech, he's actually the opposite.  He wants the speech he likes trumpeted, and he has limited access to/blocked information he doesn't want you to see.

Plus the majority of accounts here are bot accounts or 'alpha bros' whose default mode is massive douche. Twitter is MISERABLE to be on.  I've dreaded every time I've come here.

Bluntly, Twitter has been a depressing pit of despair, which has darkened my days for the last 6 months.

And Elon's latest strategy, to allow blocked people to be able to see your posts but not interact with you, is an absolute travesty.  I do not want the trolls I have deemed to not be worthy of my time to see what I'm up to, but that's nothing compared to women who have active stalkers in their lives being told they have to take their account private or risk their stalkers having access to their lives.  What kind of sicko thinks that's a good policy?

So why did I stay so long?  I was encouraged to do so by a handful of people who felt staying until the election was important.  I felt there was some legitimacy to their argument, so I hunkered down and stayed here far longer than I wanted.  Now that the election is over, I'm gone.

I won't shut down the account. There are still people I want to follow who are pretty much only here.  I've pleaded with them to go to another social media site, but they are determined to be here.  More power to them.  I will occasionally check in on them. 

I also might repost someone else's post, or comment on one of the aforementioned friend's posts, but that's it.  The daily show recaps/news posts are not going to happen here anymore. If you comment to me, and you are not someone I care about, I will block you and be done.

My main social media stop will be Threads.  That has the best interactions so far. That's @matthewmcneil1, and is also my Instagram page (although I do not post that much there).

Facebook is BY FAR my most popular page with over 9,000 followers: 'Progressive Citizen X Matthew McNeil Show.'

BlueSky is pretty good: @mattmcneilshow.bsky.social

And also Mastodon too: @MattMcNeilShow@mstdn.party 

And that's that.

I do hope you follow me elsewhere, and I really do suggest getting the hell away from Twitter.  It's rare to ever feel good after spending time in that God-forsaken hell hole.  PEACE!

The Fourth Estate is Not Our Friend

Democrats, it's time to accept a hard truth:  The National News Media, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is actively working against us.

This morning, I had to blow off some steam, still full of energy, even though I didn't sleep a wink last night.  While at the gym, I saw a friend, and we talked bout the election.  Paraphrasing her comments, she said, "I think the parties are at the extremes.  Most of us are in the middle, but the parties are on the far extremes.  Take immigration.  One side is about building a wall, and the other side is about letting everyone in."

I stopped her.  "Who said the Democrats were about letting everyone in?  They actually worked with one of the most conservative Senators to write a bipartisan border bill endorsed by many conservatives.  THAT'S THE MIDDLE! Working together with the other side is technically the middle ground. Trump was the one who ordered it killed so he could campaign against it."  

I then pressed her further. "Do you think the economy is good or bad right now?"

She responded by saying "It costs me more for food so..."

"But it always costs more for food.  That's inflation.  Do you know the country's economy today is one of the strongest we've ever had?"

She seemed to have no idea.

These are two separate issues, which were primary talking points this election cycle, and yet a woman who I don't believe is an avid right winger didn't seem to have any idea of the truth.  As a matter of fact, she seemed a bit stunned when I informed her of the truth.

She's not alone.  The national news media has been stunningly inept this year, constantly pandering the the Republican base while holding the Democrats to an impossible standard.  I'm not talking about Fox News, OAN, RT, or Newsmaxx.  We know those entities exist only to push Republicans' talking points.  I'm talking about CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, Huffington Post, AP News, and others, news media who advertise themselves as beacons of truth when all they really are is echo chambers for Republicans talking points and platforms for biased reporting.

The consummate example of this was Joe Biden.  In the aftermath of his debate performance, the national news media ran with Trump campaign talking points and fluffed up editorials, demanding (as they described it) the 'clearly incompetent candidate' step down. Yet the last three weeks of the Presidential campaign featured a clearly mentally compromised Trump who stumbled and slurred his way through incohesive sentence after incohesive sentence.  I still have yet to see ANY of the national news media talk about whether Trump was fit for office.  On the contrary, they always seemed to take the attitude of "Oh Donald, you scamp!"

Is this overt bias intentional or not?  I think a little bit of both.  Most national news media is owned by far-right owners who want to push a Republican narrative, and their daily content is deeply intertwined with the sales team and their desire to not upset Republican advertisers, advertisers who use their buying power to control the narrative.  The days of editors standing up to the sales team for the integrity of the "news" are long gone. At first, it was giving a little more favorable coverage of a Republican-leaning story, insisting "we're just covering the news" (think the Hillary fake email scandal of 2016).  Today it's almost as if the Republicans themselves are writing the stories and handing the copy to the media to print. IF there is any clarity or counterpoint at all, it's usually buried ten to twenty paragraphs deep, well away from the pro-Republican/anti-Democratic headline.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have covered Biden's bad debate performance, but they did so with such eagerness, determination, and gusto.  The bigger crime is that as they covered Biden, screaming, "It's newsworthy," THEY made the decision that Trump's antics and disqualifying behavior weren't newsworthy.

This is the point where national news media will feign outrage! "How DARE you, sir!  We have indeed addressed Trump's antics!" If you put out 20 news articles and in the 20th, at paragraph 12, you finally shine a slight bit of light on Trump, THAT'S NOT EQUAL! That's only you creating, at the bare minimum, a pathetic false equivalency to justify your other 20 articles running with the Right's talking points.

This is all by design. Republicans are masters at controlling the national narrative and have created a machine that actively puts the collective national news media on the Republican side of the media scale, pushing down with brazen intensity, making it virtually impossible for the average reader/listener/viewer to get an unbiased perspective.  

There are some good news outlets still out there.  NPR does an okay job, as does the bellwether, the BBC and most states/cities have one or two independent journalism options (think Heartland Signal, Sahan Journal, or Minnesota Reformer in the upper midwest), but the pickings are slim.

Part of this situation is the Democrats' own fault.  Multiple times, a progressive/left-leaning media network has tried to gain traction. On the radio airwaves, the Air America Radio Network launched in the mid-2000s, and Current TV tried to launch in the 2010s.  Instead of nurturing and funding these fledgling networks like the Republicans do, the Democratic Party belligerently went out of its way to not support them, then acted stunned when both of those ventures crumbled.  

The Democrats are outmatched by the Right AND themselves.

What can we do about this?  My suggestion is to reject the national news media.  Find the one or two outlets that seem to still have a level of journalistic integrity and delete the rest of them from your life. If enough people turn away from them, then maybe (although unlikely) they might change their ways. 

Also, support the media outlets that are trying to give you a more fair perspective.

A major reason Donald Trump is back in the White House is the intentional/unintentional coordination with the national news media.  I don't believe they can be trusted anymore. 

What We All Just Lost

Congratulations Republicans! Donald Trump has won another term in the White House. 

No matter if you voted for him because you're a racist, a selfish billionaire, or just a petty small person who will gladly drown on the Titanic as long as you can be 10 feet higher up on the deck so you can watch your perceived enemies drown before you do, you succeeded! You voted for a guy who said he liked Hitler AND was best pals with Jeffery Epstein, even riding on Epsteins child sex plane to the child sex island.  Now, let's see what you're in store for!

Here are all the things you've lost:

Social Security

Medicaid

Medicare (I know you Rightos think that Trump will only cancel those social safety net programs for the Democrats, but that's not how all this works.  You will lose your benefits too, but Trump will convince you you're better off without them, even though you most definitely are not.)

Abortion rights in America

Contraception in America

In-Vitro Fertilization

Women's Rights overall

The ability to have sex, however, and with whomever you love, in the privacy of your own house. 

The Post Office

Vaccinations

Fluoride in tap water

Workers rights

Fair wages

The CDC

The Department of Education

Ukraine

Gaza

Consequences for Trump's crimes

Consequences for Jan. 6th Insurrectionists

Any Corporate regulations

Natural disaster relief (even in red states, the budget for FEMA will be gutted, so...good luck!)

Food Assistance 

Housing assistance 

Heating Assistance 

The Affordable Care Act 

Pretty much every social safety net program

Your right to not be stopped and detained by the police

A positive economy (Trump's plan to mass deport most of the low-income wage workers in this country at the cost of trillions of dollars, plus his highly misguided tariff gambit, will crater the economy and create a massive deficit).

Consequences for racism

Consequences for religious intolerance

The ability to go into a public school and NOT have biblical teachings thrust into your kid's face.

Pristine wilderness that might have oil or minerals underneath it

Clean water

Drinkable tap water

State's rights (guarantee Trump and that Supreme Court will suddenly insist the rights of the states do not supersede the will of the Federal government.)

Freedom of Religion

Freedom of Speech 

Any efforts to fight climate change

LGBTQIA+ Rights

Affordable prescription medication

Cheap groceries

The Middle Class 

Unions (outside of the police and sports ones)

Any potential accountability for the President (I bet he'll get the Supreme Court to find some way to throw out all the civil lawsuits against him)

Democracy

Fair elections

Plus much much MORE!!!

Prepare for a conservative Supreme Court for the next FIFTY YEARS! That's right! That Supreme Court will be having 6-3 rulings until at least 2070, ruling on the side of money over the people EVERY TIME!

And Trump will likely resign from office so his replacement can pardon him for all acts while in the White House, which means (say it all together!) President Vance! 

On top of that, the Republicans and the national news media will do everything in their power to convince you ALL OF THESE THINGS were actually done to you by the Democrats, and you'll gleefully believe them!

This is what you get for embracing misogyny, turning away from a HIGHLY qualified candidate for President, and electing a man who didn't have a cohesive sentence for the last three weeks, even pretending to give oral sex to a microphone. 

You win.  You own all of this! 

Garbage

Earlier this year, we heard of a sad situation for Minnesota State Senate Democrat Nicole Mitchell.  Amid a struggle with her mother-in-law in the wake of her father's passing, there was a situation where she was accused of breaking and entering into her parent's home to retrieve some things she said her father had promised her, but her mother-in-law was refusing to give her.

I felt she should resign (which she hasn't) not because of the salacious nature of the story the Minnesota Republicans were gleefully running with, but rather because she was dealing with something that has become a fairly common issue in modern families today, a lack of a clear will laying out who gets what in the event of a beloved family member dying.  For the record, EVERYONE should have this discussion before bad feelings tear families apart.  

Republicans at the time tried to spread this scandal across the entire Minnesota DFL, indicating this was just another example of how the party was flawed.  By attaching Mitchell's behavior to every other Democrat, they felt they might have a path to victory in November.  It didn't matter that many DFL'ers in leadership positions were also calling for Mitchell to resign. The narrative from the Republicans was, "They're all the same!!!"  They are by no means all the same, but (to be fair and honest) there was one other highly unqualified (and fairly disturbed) MN house candidate from the DFL, but the party cut ties with him earlier this year. 

What's remarkable is the two lies the Republicans keep screaming:

1) We are the party of 'high moral fiber.' 

2) We would NEVER tolerate such behavior from a Republican running for office!

These two OUTRIGHT LIES are laughable.  The MNGOP NEVER demands a resignation whenever one of their own says or does anything out of line, even when they are FAR WORSE than any Democrat I can remember.

Below is a list of SIXTEEN Republicans who, over the last year, have said and done things that should have gotten a political party with 'high moral fiber' to at least condemn them, if not ask for a resignation (Dotseth???...ANYONE???).

• Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar, 12/19/23 - Even though we all saw the new state flag selection process, this idiot tweeted out that an earlier version of the new MN State flag was a salute to Somalia.  It wasn't, but this launched endless morons insisting the new state flag was actually a Somali flag.  Let's not skip past the implied racist element of this argument.

• Congressman Pete Stauber, All year long - Stubby has consistently stated that the infrastructure bill known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bill that brought much-needed spending to his district, a bill he described as "socialism" and will "devastate our economy" as he PROUDLY voted against it, has CONSTANTLY LIED the entire year that somehow he was responsible for the local spending he had NOTHING TO DO WITH! He voted against the bill but has lied constantly.  CONSTANTLY!!!

• Royce White, All year long - In a stunningly bad decision. the Republican Party endorsed Royce to be their official Senate candidate to take on Amy Klobuchar.  Not only does he have an insane amount of incredibly offensive, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semetic social media posts, not only did someone from his previous campaign spend campaign funds in a strip club, but he seems to be FAR MORE focused on being an internet troll, having personally insulted me and others multiple times over the last few months.  A reminder that this is the current US Senate candidate for the Republicans, and all it seems he does is troll on Twitter.

• Sen. Robert Farnsworth, 4/2/24 - attempted to amend the omnibus education bill with an amendment that would allow kids to be able to graduate without Algebra II. HE'S A TEACHER! His justification seems to come down to "I never have used it so no one should have to learn it!"

• Various Republicans, 4/5/24 - A group of Minnesota Republicans went full conspiracy theory and introduced an anti-chemtrails bill.  The bill called for county sheriffs (?!?) to investigate citizen complaints about chemtrails.  There's so much stupid here, and you can guess some of the fools involved in this, but it was surprising that one of the moron sponsors was Senate assistant minority leader Justin Eichorn.

• Drew Roach, 4/11/24 - The MN House candidate, in 2022, was part of a group that was trying to stop a primary election in the city of Rosemount.  He was trying to serve a citizen petition to a city council member. Roach and another woman showed up three times to her house.  The third time, he got into an altercation with the council member's son, which led to Roach being charged with disorderly conduct.  Roach apparently was pounding on the door, and the altercation began when Roach said, "I know where you live, mother...er!" 

• Jimmy Gordon, 7/23/24 - The Republican candidate for MN House, who knocked off the incumbent in the primary, has a long history of tax delinquency, including a nearly $39,000 tax lien on him from the IRS, which was only resolved earlier this year.  The state of Minnesota has filed 3 tax liens on him, all of which have been resolved.  And he wants to make budget decisions for you! 

• Erica Schwartz, 9/10/24 - At a Republican fundraiser in Mankato, the MN House candidate said Democrats were leading the US into another Holocaust. Showing she doesn't really know what the Holocaust was, her justification for making this claim was Democrats promoting transgender rights, and too many Pride flags. 

• Kathleen Fowke, 9/18/24 - The sole Republican running for an MN Senate seat has extensive ties to big energy, but it's her home ownership that also raised some eyebrows. Not only does she own TWO multi-million dollar homes and two other Minneapolis homes, but the super-wealthy candidate used a homestead property tax exemption for a Plymouth townhome she doesn't live in. It's (fudgy) legal, as a relative lives there, but it does raise some eyebrows as far as a multi-millionaire claiming a tax break on a home she doesn't live in while her actual home is valued at 4.9 million.

• Caleb Steffenhagen, 9/13/24 - A story exposes the mngop MN House candidate as having worked with a group that counseled members against same-sex attraction.  When confronted about it he justified his stance by insisting that the Bible tells him to think this way, but he promised he wouldn't influence his votes.  Sure...

• Rep. Jeff Dotseth, 9/17/24 - It is revealed that the Representative, in 2008, was arrested and was prohibited from having contact with his ex-wife.  In sworn affidavits against him, he allegedly mentally and physically abused his ex-wife and his stepson and allegedly kicked and punched their pet dog.  He also allegedly said he would own slaves if it was legal today.  The alleged abuse of his ex-wife included slapping, kicking and choking.  His stepson is still today scared of the man after the alleged abuse he endured.  HE WASN'T FOUND NOT GUILTY! He plead to a lesser charge, meaning those sworn affidavits are still out there.

• Rep. Paul Novotny, 9/17/24 - The Representative was a police sergeant who responded to the 2008 domestic assault call on Dotseth.  HE KNEW! And yet he never said anything, even when he became a Representative. 

• Bidal Duran, 9/24/24 - The candidate for MN House, when he was a law enforcement official, had a state judge chew him out for "intentionally or recklessly mischaracterizing the truth," on two affidavits regarding a felony drug case. The case fell apart due to Duran's reckless behavior and there was an investigation into misconduct.

• Aaron Repinski, 10/8/24 - The GOP candidate for an MN House seat was at a fundraiser when he freely shared there should be strict limits on abortion, "maybe it's 5 to 6 weeks," before most women even know they are pregnant. When confronted about it, his campaign manager said he was unaware of being recorded.

• Nathan Hansen, 10/10/24 - The Republican-endorsed candidate for a district judge position tried to delete a lot of his former social media posts, but enough of them remain to get a pretty stark picture of Hansen.  THE MAN WHO WANTS TO BE A JUDGE promoted Pizzagate (the lunatic fringe conspiracy about a child sex hoax in a pizza parlor), said property taxes are illegal, and said satanic people run the government.

• Nathan Wesenberg, 10/28/24 - The astonishingly incompetent Senator likely is looking at a libel lawsuit against himself and the Minnesota Republican Party after he posted on his official Senate Facebook page a post that accused a teacher in his district of wanting to teach boys to give other boys oral sex.  This is completely made up, and it seems like the intent of the post was to get someone to violently attack the teacher.  When news media started to cover the post, Wesenberg meekly deleted it, but the lawsuit potential is still there.  

There are AT LEAST five other candidates I could've included here and at least 4 more GOP candidates who have been caught sharing their true feelings on outlawing abortion in the state.

The MNGOP is garbage. Not only are they chock full of unqualified and incompetent people who shouldn't be in charge of a SPOON, let alone an elected official, but the rest of the party, the so-called 'good Republicans,' can't even bring themselves to condemn the indefensible behavior of their candidates (DOTESTH??? ANYONE???).

Shame on them.  They are indeed a FAR WORSE option than the Democrats.

As you go vote on November 5th, remember that not only is Trump unworthy of your vote, but THERE ISN'T A SINGLE REPUBLICAN IN THE STATE WITH ANY MORAL FIBER.

Vote straight Democratic Ticket and take the garbage out!

The Friday Link for 11/1/24

With Election Week upon us, let's focus on politics.

First up is Epic Rap Battles of History with their traditional candidate versus candidate video.

Warning, some adult language! 

Next up is Jordan Klepper doing what Jordan Klepper does best, going to Trump rallies and exposing the insanity of the people there.  This time, he goes to a few of them with other people and the results are equally as amazing.

He went to the Reno rally with Thomas Lennon, who's best known for playing Lt. Jim Dangle from Reno 911!  How in the world they did not absolutely break up the entire time, I do not know.

And watch until the end because the retrospective thoughts are pretty spot on!

 

Also, from The Daily Show, John Leguizamo shows Trump's comments about Latino/Hispanic people to Latino/Hispanic Trump voters and it gets interesting.  The end of this video is also nuts.

Remember to vote.  Even if you disagree with me, voting is such an amazing unique right.  Your state's Secretary of State Page will have all the details you need to vote.

And everyone call everyone you know and encourage them to vote.  See if they need a ride to the polls! 

Have a nice weekend.